Targeted review of market participants' readiness for the opening of the retail market for eligible business, charity and public sector customers of companies whose areas are wholly or mainly in England

Objective

The targeted review will:

• Provide us with external assurance that the participants will be ready for market opening; • Highlight any areas of risk to the opening the market, and therefore where we can challenge market participants to improve; • Send a strong signal to stakeholders about the industry's collective commitment that the retail market will be ready on time.

Scope

The scope of this work is limited to the assurances that water companies that are wholly or mainly in England will be ready for market opening in April 2017, in relation to the following three areas that we have assessed as being highest risk to the opening of the market.

• What assurances are there that market participants' decisions about how they run their businesses ensure a level playing field, and therefore what assurances are there that appointed companies will not discriminate in favour of their own services and customers? • What assurances are in place that market participants are planning to improve their systems and data quality? • What assurances are there that participants will be ready to deal with different 'customer journeys'? What assurances, and are there plans in place, that they will be ready to deal with for example o New customers o Losing a customer o Customer retention o Resolving the issue when something goes wrong

We require an independent assessment of the strength of the assurances for the above three areas.

We would also like the Contractor to identify the level of review that would be appropriate for:

• the two Welsh companies; • New appointments and variations (NAVs); and • potential new entrants and companies who might become retailers

Key Tasks

In order to meet the business objectives, the project will involve the Contractor performing the following types of tasks, although we would consider other methods:

• Designing a questionnaire and sending it out to all market participants to identify, at a high level, the assurances around the three areas listed under the Scope section. • Assessing the responses to the questionnaire and drawing conclusions at this high level. • Provide input into Ofwat's decision as to which market participants to target for a more in depth review of the areas identified as highest risk to readiness of market opening. • Attending and leading meetings with market participants judged as highest risk to overall market readiness. • Producing a final report.

Key Deliverables

The Contractor will be required to produce the following key deliverables. The draft report shall be produced no later than 1 August 2016. Earlier versions can be shared and discussed prior to this. We may request that the draft report be presented to a group of Ofwat colleagues.

The final report (a full and redacted version if required) shall be produced no later than 15 August 2016.

Ofwat may wish to disclose the final report separately or as part of a publication.